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When Damian was five, his mother told him that he was infallible.
He hadn’t known what that meant until two years later. When he understood, he held onto that belief with his bare fists and refused to let it be pried away.
That belief was what drove him to push Drake off the giant dinosaur figure and onto the glass case. To taunt and spit insults that would make him crumble. To cut his grapple line. To glare at him every day and never once offer a smile. That belief had settled his and Drake’s relationship in stone.
Drake was in the way of him and his father. He was in the way of him and his right to be Robin and taking on Father’s legacy of the Bat, Wayne Enterprises and everything else he held. He was in the way of his position in the family he was trained to be a part of since he was born.
Damian could not be fallible. He could not.
But… when Father came back from the timestream and things had settled down, Damian decided to take the time and understand his family. Richard told him that families said a lot about a person. “A good family makes a good person,” those were Grayson’s words.
Damian wanted to be a good person.
He had come a long way from the murderous assassin he was when he had first arrived in Gotham. His and Richard’s time as Batman and Robin was an entirely different experience than the one he had in the League of Assassins. Grayson was not a harsh trainer. Grayson did not push beyond his limits when he didn’t want to. He did not pressure him to do things he didn’t want to. He never abandoned him and never criticized his hobbies and passions.
After that, Damian understood how much strength a person like Grayson held because he was good. And he wanted to be the same.
So he tried. He did try. But when it came to Drake… it was always so hard when the older boy was so damn infuriating.
“Damian?” Drake said in a measured tone as he stepped into his room. “Did you snitch to Bruce today?”
Damian looked up from his tablet and pen. “Yes. I saw you out yesterday and you weren’t supposed to be.”
Drake’s jaw clenched tightly. “You didn't think I had a reason?” he spoke through gritted teeth.
“Why?” Richard, Todd, Brown, and even Pennyworth were all on his back for the past week letting him know that Red Robin was benched because he was “spiraling” and needed a break but was refusing. “At this point, I don’t even have to do anything, you’re driving yourself to a grave.”
“This fucking thing again?” His tone spat a type of fiery venom that Damian hadn’t heard directed towards him since a year ago when they were still at odds with each other. He took an abrupt double-take.
“What nonsense are you raving about now?”
“I thought we were okay now,” Drake said with a thin voice that did nothing to veil the anger burning in his eyes. “I thought Dick did his sunshine magic and it was all okay.”
Damian’s frowned. Something wasn’t right. What prompted this sudden mood swing?
Drake shook his head, that bitterness lining his movements. “Guess I should have known better than to think your tainted roots as Ra’s Al Ghul’s grandson could ever change. I don’t know how Dick hasn’t given up on you yet.”
Something tore into Damian’s heart. Something black and gooey. Something acidic and poisonous. And at that moment, Damian couldn’t breathe.
Drake was turning, leaving his room.
The same black, gooey thing in his chest reared at the sight of his turning back. And it burned his chest with a fury that went all the way up to his throat.
Damian couldn’t help the words he said next.
“But Grayson has given up on you.”
Drake halted, back still turned.
“And you know deep down that so has Father and Todd and everyone else. Because you don’t belong. You never did.”
Drake turned. Slowly, rigidly. He faced Damian.
But instead of anger, all he had on his face was misery.
“I’m sorry then,” Timothy said. “For being an inconvenience.”
Then he took a step backward, slammed the door and left.
As soon as he did, Damian realized the mistake he made.
It was easy. It was so easy to slip back into the routine of cutting insults and murder attempts from a year ago. It was too fucking easy.
Todd had better self-control. He had done worse things to Drake but hadn’t snarled a single insult at him even on rage toxin.
But Damian wasn’t even on rage toxin. He was in his room, comfortable and secure.
Maybe Drake was right. Maybe the reason why it was so easy for him to be mean was because he had never changed in the first place. Doomed to stay the grandson of the worst villain on Earth.
Deep down, despite Grayson’s many denials, Damian knew that he was a monster.
---------------------------------------------------
Damian stared up at his ceiling while in bed. The ray of moonlight cupping his face from the side.
Neither of them had talked during dinner. Everyone started to notice the quiet, but as soon as Richard asked what had happened, Drake shot up, took his plate of food, and left without a word. Then all eyes turned to Damian.
Damian just flushed red and glared at his food, keeping his gaze firmly down until dinner finished then marched straight to his room, shutting the door and lying in bed.
He couldn’t believe he had said that over nothing.
It was clear that there was something else going on. Some hidden meaning in the undercurrent of Drake’s tone. Drake wouldn’t have said that. Not anymore. They had been bonding. They had been spending more time together often and enjoying it.
He recalled everything that had gone down the past year. The apology that Drake had instigated which Damian returned back, the drawings that Drake caught of him which Damian drew, the mysterious art supplies on his bed which he had been too timid to ask Father for, the requests he made to play chess in the evenings, the team-ups on patrol, the slow ascent of friendly banter that had picked up, the trips to the San Francisco zoo which Drake took him to whenever Damian got injured.
Damian being the first one to slip up and call Drake his ‘brother’ in front of him.
The look of joy and fondness that took over Drake’s features when Damian had accidentally referred to him as akhi was one he could still picture in his head as clear as day. And he could feel the hug that came after clearly too.
Damian gritted his teeth. He had to fix this, he had to.
He liked being brothers with Drake more than being enemies with him. He didn’t want to go back to the miserable days where the two competed to one-up each other on who could hurt the other more.
The “spiraling” thing Richard told him must have been really bad and he had made it worse. He had poor and sometimes dangerous coping mechanisms and Damian did not ever want him to go back to.
Rolling out of bed, he padded over to his desk and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen.
Right. What were some things could he do that would make Timothy happy? Anything to do with coffee was always something, but Pennyworth had given them firm instructions that Drake’s addiction needed to be kept in check. Though Todd and Brown were a little loose with the orders, Damian wouldn’t be. He cared about Drake which meant that he cared about his health. No matter how much hair-pulling whinging he did.
What else? He couldn’t do anything related to patrol. That was what caused this fight in the first place. Perhaps some of his other hobbies? Photography was one, but he couldn’t really do anything special since Drake had dropped the interest. New gadgets wouldn’t suffice either…
Damn it, despite gift-giving being his “love language” (as Richard had told him), it was still extremely hard to come up with something good.
Sighing, Damian snatched up his phone and angrily started scrolling through his feed, looking for inspiration.
An hour of doom scrolling passed by, with no inspiration having struck.
Damian groaned in frustration, resisting the urge to throw his phone across the room. Instead, he furiously swiped down to exit, but missed, swiping to the next video instead.
Bright colors lit up his room as someone’s art tutorial with Epic music in the background played. It was eye-catching, so Damian paused to inspect the color combination the artist had used.
They used pretty warm colors with a mixture of bright, poppy ones for some stickers on an object. They zoomed out to show the stickers belonging to a skateboard, which explained the use of the warm colors. It was really well drawn, the features of the boy on the video were on-point too. They did the ratios really well, actually. And the bottom angle perspective was brilliant too with that skateboarding pose—
SKATEBOARD.
DRAKE LIKED SKATEBOARDING!
Damian jumped up from his chair and quickly exited the app and onto Google, searching up “skateboard”. He paced up and down his room as the page loaded.
Drake was a big fan of skateboarding and Damian knew that he was looking for one he could use on a casual basis, rather than riding the Redboard out in broad daylight. He was incredibly fond of Redboard and would use it during idle training sessions or patrol nights. He could do pretty amazing tricks on them too, ones that would prompt his jaw to become ajar with awe (not that he would so openly admit it).
He scrolled through the links, looking for a good one. And one caught his eye.
‘Win! Signed Skateboard by Widdad Herself!’
Damian’s eyes popped. Widdad? As in the Widdad that Drake wouldn’t shut up about that one time when Damian asked about his skateboarding hobby?
No way could he believe this stroke of luck.
After a quick skim of the webpage, it seemed that there was a skateboarding competition going on with the first prize being a skateboard with an exclusive new design and also signed by Widdad. This was perfect!
A smile overtook him. All he had to do was enter the competition, win, and give the skateboard to Drake and fix everything!
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There was just one small problem.
Damian didn’t know how to skate.
All he knew about the sport so far was whenever he watched Drake idly trying out his board in the Batcave or sometimes, rarely, during patrol. Still, Damian wasn’t one to give up.
The very next day, he purchased a skateboard and walked straight into a skate park. He set the skateboard down in front of the ramp and put a foot on it like how he had seen Drake. Drake also stretched and flexed his joints before slamming the skateboard and riding it. Damian didn’t know if that was for showing off or really was necessary, but to be on the safe side, he cracked a few of his joints too.
He looked down at the slope. It wasn’t very high, and Damian had trained in many balancing-focused sports—all much deadlier. It couldn’t be that hard at all. If Drake could do it, and he did it so easily, then he could too. Even better than him too, since he was genetically built to be a prodigy at everything.
Sniffing haughtily, Damian lifted his other foot and rested it on the skateboard, releasing the hold and taking off. He rode down the slope, then went up with the momentum.
Just as he jumped up to do that skateboard-twist flip Drake would do, the skateboard flew off course and Damian flew down.
Damian bounced against the rough slope then slid down at the bottom. His skateboard lay abandoned opposite to him, upside down with wheels spinning.
“Ow,” Damian hissed, looking down at his arm to see a light bloody scrape. “Hmph. Technical error.” He got up and picked up his skateboard again. He must have blinked or something. Or maybe he hadn’t mentally prepared enough. He must have still been expecting his bike under him rather than the skateboard.
He climbed back up to the ramp and took off. He rode down, then up, then jumped…
Then fell.
Growling, Damian snatched the skateboard and climbed back again. Then fell again.
And again. And again. And again.
And again.
“Fucking hell!” Damian swore, slamming his fist on the plywood.
Why was he falling so many times?! He was supposed to be good at it!. The skateboard wasn’t like his Robin-bike at all. It was small and flimsy and was totally out of control. He didn’t even know why Drake liked this thing. Just ride a bike like a normal person!
“Stupid piece of wood on wheels!” Damian roared and kicked the pathetic thing.
It tumbled and landed on its wheels, rolling over to a group of teens laughing and playing on the rails.
They looked up as the skateboard reached them, and spotted the boy to whom the board belonged to.
Damian was oblivious, too busy fuming, glaring at the ramp and climbing back up and angrily muttering to himself to notice. It was only when he reached the top that he realised that he hadn’t gone to collect the skateboard back.
Putting up a brave fight within himself to not tear his hair out, he let out a sharp exhale and stomped down to go and get his stupid piece of blue-and-black painted wood.
Ignoring the teenagers staring at his bleeding scrapes and furious expression, he grabbed the skateboard. About to stomp back to the ramp, he almost missed someone calling him.
Damian whirled around, ready to snap at the buffoon who was obviously about to sneer at his poor skateboarding skills. “What?”
“Whoa.” The boy with the bright blue hair who was nearing him put his hands up. “Not gonna bite, promise.”
“It’s just that we noticed a couple things about your skateboarding technique.” A girl with her face covered in stickers jerked her head at his skateboard. “Just wanna help you out.”
“I don’t need help,” Damian snarled.
Then suddenly, he remembered something Pennyworth had said to him.
“Sometimes, I like asking your father to open jars for me,” he had told Damian once, when he had come home angry after being benched for going solo on the field. “It’s not really because I need it. But being the age I am now, I tend to forget that sometimes I really don’t have it all put together. Having something such as asking for help opening a jar humbles me, and reminds me that I am capable of anything I want.”
He smiled straight at Damian as he popped open the jam lid. “Including asking for help when I do need it.”
Damian sighed and glowered at the ground. “But if you really want to…” he muttered just loudly enough for them to hear.
“Our pleasure,” the blue-haired boy said.
“We all started out terribly,” the girl hopped off where she was sitting on the skating rail and approached him. “Even Widdad was absolutely horrendous when she started.”
“And here’s a secret,” another kid with an undertale face mask winked at him. “The worse you are, the better you’ll get.”
And so, Damian’s skateboarding training started.
The group of teens showed him the simple mistakes he was making. Putting all his balance by standing upright with a perfect posture, was one. It turned out that he was meant to slouch while skating, and bend his knees while he was at it. No wonder Drake’s posture was so horrid if his favorite past-time involved always keeping his spine bent.
The other thing he was doing wrong was not learning the basics first. He was resolute in his belief that he already had everything down thanks to his training, but he couldn’t exactly reveal it to these civilians. So he had to put up with it.
“Have you ever just ridden a skateboard?” the blue-haired kid asked. “Like no tricks or flips, just plain drifting?”
A blush almost crept on his face as Damian shook his head.
The boy looked amused. “Well, there’s our starting point.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon doing just the basics. All the balancing, pushing off, turning and stopping activities.
It wasn’t… all bad. The teens were actually supportive and nice. They liked joking around, but not cruelly. They were chatty too. (A little too much in Damian’s opinion, but he had Grayson as a brother and Brown as a sister so he was used to it.)
But that wasn’t the main reason. No, the thing that made the afternoon so great was finding out that Damian was a prodigy. He just needed to learn the theory first.
“Shit, dude!” one of the teens exclaimed with their hands on their head as Damian performed a perfect ollie on the third try. “I know they say third time’s the charm and all but that was so perfect, it’s hard to believe it isn’t a charm.”
Damian grinned.
They trained for another hour before the group had to head back to their homes. He was a little sad to see them go. They were what Todd would call “a good bunch”.
“Bye, kid!” the boy waved.
“Good luck!” Another said.
“Remember to slide your foot up to the nose of the ‘board next time!” the girl yelled out, pushing forward on her own board and riding away.
Damian waved once in thanks, making a mental note to keep an extra eye out for them during patrol. If any of them got into trouble, Robin would be there to get them out. Just like how they were here to get him out of his.
Damian put down his skateboard and moved to the next trick he had on the list he and the group had created for him to practice before moving on to the truly advanced tricks. Spending the rest of the day in the park, Damian was exhausted by the time he came home. Only three hours before patrol, he decided to grab a quick snack and take a short nap.
He traipsed down to the kitchen, but paused when he heard voices.
Drake and Todd’s voices.
“Tim,” Todd was saying, “I know that something’s wrong. Dick’s been up my ass about how you look like you’re an inch away from a breakdown. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Drake answered.
Todd sighed roughly. “Tim, please. I’m getting worried too, what’s going on? Did something happen during a patrol?”
“Mind your business.”
Damian heard the beep of a coffee machine, and that was when he knew that Drake really wasn’t okay.
If Alfred wasn’t enforcing a firm limit on his intake, then Drake must be in a really bad place. And Damian had just made it worse for him by not having basic self-control.
Silently slinking away, Damian went back upstairs to his room. His skateboard rested beside his desk.
Damian stared at it, thinking.
Now he knew that he wasn’t the trigger for Timothy’s current state, but something else entirely. He must have still pushed him off the edge somehow. Damian was always ruining anything he wanted to preserve.
But he was going to fix it. He and Drake had both worked so hard to build their relationship, he wasn’t going to abandon it. He was going to visit as many skateparks as he could and practice the hell out of the next two weeks until the competition.
Slamming the door open to his bathroom, Damian opened the cabinet and got out the wound disinfect.
As he cleaned each wound he got today from the skateboarding fails, his determination grew and grew. He was going to become the best, he was going to win the competition, he was going to get that skateboard and he was going to make Drake happy again. He wasn’t just some random twelve-year-old kid. He was Damian Wayne-Al Ghul. Grandson of the Demon’s Head, son of the Bat, and brother of Gotham’s greatest urban legends. Failure was not in his name.
---------------------------------------------
Damian visited the skatepark every day of the week, even sneaking his skateboard out during idle times while on patrol. He relentlessly practiced on the skateboard, tackling tricks after tricks.
Once he got the hang of all the necessary ones, he turned to building his skateboarding routine for the competition. He was going to do nothing but the best tricks for the judges. The seemingly near-impossible ones.
After a bit of research and a bit of questioning from the other residents of the skatepark, Damian found out that the hardest trick ever performed in skateboarding history was the 900. It involved spinning two and a half times in the air then landing straight on the skateboard.
Deciding against repeating the same mistake, instead of trying to get success in the first try itself, Damian used his first try to feel it out. To feel the movement, the momentum force, his body, the wind, the skateboard, and the ramp.
He twisted around once, but lost balance of the skateboard and fell. That was okay, he told himself despite the sting, he had expected it anyway. But he knew now what he needed to practice to get that trick right.
Damian skated up and down the ramp, trying out a few of the tricks from his routine while thinking.
In fact, he was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even seen Brown and Cain standing in front of the ramp with their mouths ajar and eyes bulging.
When he did notice, he was in the middle of a kickturn. He almost lost balance when he saw them, faltering on his landing.
“Damian?” Brown whispered. “Is that you?”
Cain was shaking her head without realizing, in disbelief.
Damian’s eyes widened in panic. He shot a brief glance behind him before taking off.
He pushed his skateboard as hard and fast as he could. Even without looking back, he could tell that the two girls were after him.
He ducked and weaved through the obstacles, sliding down the stairs through a group of skateboarders who shrieked in surprise.
“Sorry! Just trying to chase our little shit of a brother!” he heard Brown’s voice behind him.
Damian panted, bolstering out of the park and onto the concrete of the sidewalk. He rode past people, pushing several but never stopping. If he disappeared soon enough, then he could gaslight his way into making it seem that he was never seen at the park at all.
“Damian!” he heard Cain’s voice.
Muffling a terrified yelp, Damian drove straight into oncoming traffic. A car beeped as he zipped in front of it. Another honked loudly as Damian stopped just in time to not get run over before resuming his frantic escape.
A two-seater car blasting loud music rang a long horn as it zoomed straight at him, not showing any sign of slowing down and Damian leapt up on reflex.
The world seemed to enter slow-motion as Damian flew over the head of the man sitting in front of the wheel, looking taken aback at the flying kid.
Then everything came back to itself when Damian landed on the skateboard, which had slid under the car, and reached the other side of the road.
He allowed himself a brief glance behind and nearly puked out his heart when he saw the pedestrian crossing light turning green and Brown and Cain pushing past people and coming his way. Damian immediately turned and pushed his skateboard forward—
Only to crash right through a window.
Pieces of window glass and the cake from the cake displays flew everywhere. People shrieked and screamed in fear. Damian fell face-first into a (quite delicious but painful) mess of cake and glass.
“Oh my gosh, Damian! Are you alright?”
“Little brother, you okay?”
Damian groaned as he pushed himself up on his palms, more pieces of glass piercing his skin. He spat out the piece of cake and blinked, shaking his head. Two pairs of hands helped him out of the window display stand, brushing him down and plucking out pieces of glass and wiping the cake stuck to him.
“What kind of stupid idea was that?” Brown scolded. “Are you crazy? What possessed you to crash through a window?”
Damian coughed and spat out more cake. “I was trying to get away from you!” he snapped. “Because you two don’t know how to mind your fucking businesses!”
“Language,” Cain clicked her tongue, plucking out another piece of glass wedged into his cheek.
“You’re lucky you’re not seriously injured. Thank goodness the glass hasn’t cut you too badly.” Brown plucked out another piece, earning a small hiss.
“MY SHOP!” A plump woman pushed away the people crowding around the window. When she reached the scene, her hands flew to her hair in horror. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
The three of them froze, slowly looking up with guilty faces.
“We’re so sorry,” Brown began. “We truly didn’t mean it. It was an accident.”
“Who’s going to pay for all of this?” the woman yelled hysterically at them. “My insurance isn’t enough to cover all of this!”
“Sorry,” Cain said. “We’ll pay.”
“You?” the woman screamed. “You kids wouldn’t be able to earn a thousand bucks in one month let alone a week!”
Damian dug into his pocket and pulled out a card. He brushed off the bit of cake stuck to it and reached through the broken window and handed it to her. “Call this number, it will cover everything.”
“How can this even— Oh.” The woman brought the card right up to her eye, as if to make sure whether the WE credential was real or not.
“Let’s keep this one the downlow, yes?” he asked her. “My father will be furious if he finds out.”
“I’m afraid that’s gonna be impossible,” Cain said, pointing at the people around them holding up phones, obviously recording everything going on.
“I can see the headlines already,” Brown smiled through gritted teeth. “You know, this would be hilarious if not for the fact that Bruce is currently in Africa right now.”
“In Africa” was their cover for when Bruce was on a Justice League mission in a God-knows-where place. He was scheduled to return two days later, which wasn’t enough time to cover everything up, and there would be no doubt that he wasn’t going to be happy about this.
“Let’s get out of here,” Cain said, tugging the both of them forward. “We can handle it later.”
Damian’s shoulders slumped as he let Cain drag him through the crowd. He was trying to keep anyone from finding out about his endeavor and now everyone was going to know. He just hoped Drake wouldn’t check the news or any social media for the next five days.
They walked a fair bit away until stopping by an empty alley a few blocks away where Damian was then cornered and trapped by the two girls.
“Now, what exactly is going on here now?” Brown asked with an expression as serious as it could get. “Are you having a psychotic breakdown? When did you start skateboarding? And why are you so hooked on no one finding out? Did you join a cult or something? Is skateboarding a part of it?”
Cain nudged at Brown, warning her to calm down with the questions, but nodded at Damian asking him to answer.
Damian scowled as he looked away. He didn’t have to explain himself. The buffoons should just keep their sticky noses out. His reasons were his own.
But having lived with a family so human and soft as this one, it was impossible not to become human and soft himself. For some wild reason, he felt compelled to give them their answers. Like he owed them or something.
Damian grumbled internally before launching into an explanation. He explained how he had spoken horrid words to Drake by accident and how hurt it made him, he explained how he wanted to fix what he said and take his words back, he explained how he found a skateboarding competition, how it had a skateboard signed by Drake’s favorite skateboarder, how he was learning skateboarding for it, and how he intended to win the competition to get the signed skateboard for Drake so they could go back to being on good terms again.
Brown and Cain listened intently throughout, neither of them interrupting even once. It was surprising for Brown who loved talking as much as Alfred the cat loved tormenting Titus.
When he reached the end, he sank against the wall, arms crossed with a glare as he waited for the teasing to come through.
But Brown and Cain glanced at each other, then… did nothing. They moved away from Damian, letting him have the space again since he wasn’t going to try and escape now.
Cain smiled at him. “That’s sweet of you, Dami.”
“Damian,” he corrected.
“Tim’s been really out of it lately, and none of us know what’s going on. It’s been bad and worrying for all of us, but this…” She squeezed Damian’s shoulder. “I think he’ll love this. It’s going to make him really happy.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” Brown crossed her arms with a grin.
Damian perked up, eyes shining, then immediately cleared his throat and smoothed his expression to one of feigned interest. “Good. It is what I am aiming for.”
Cain laughed and ruffled his hair. “We’ll help too. You’ll improve faster when you have people.”
“I agree. Do you want to meet after the mid-point check-in tonight? You can tell us what your plan is and we can cook up a way to train you to be the best.”
Damian nodded without hesitation. Letting those group of teens help him turned out to be a great decision, so could this one. After all, Pennyworth was never wrong in his words.
Damian was going to win.
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When the three of them met during patrol, it was fortunately a quiet night. Damian explained his plans for his routine and his plan to perform the 900 trick.
Brown let out a low whistle when Damian showed a video of how it looked.
Cain tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I have an idea,” she said. “Listen.”
She explained how the trick looked sort of similar to the release-land procedure they used to jump from building to building with their grapple hook. It was easy to spin with all that momentum and height. If they practiced that way first, then attached a skateboard as a second step, then finally added the ramp to the practice, he might just be able to do it.
It sounded perfect. Damian was eager to try it out.
They spent the next couple hours just grappling from building to building while doing the rotating spins. They were interrupted a few times by a crime here and there, but still stuck to their objective.
A couple hours away from the end of patrol, Damian brought out his skateboard and started the practice to spin with it. It was definitely hard trying to keep hold of the skateboard while spinning, and dangerous since they were so high up. But with Brown catching the skateboard and Cain catching Damian when they fell, no one got hurt.
Twenty or so minutes before the end of patrol, Damian finally managed to keep hold of the skateboard and land.
The three of them got so excited that they all let out one collective happy scream. Brown was shaking Damian in excitement while Cain jumped up and down on the spot, fist in the air as she patted Damian’s back. Damian was laughing with joy, not quite being able to believe that he had actually done it.
“Damian, you’re amazing!” Stephanie shouted as she kissed his head (though not quite fully since she had her mask on).
“Brilliant, little brother! Brilliant!” Cassandra exclaimed.
“Thanks,” Damian said, a little breathless. “Let’s get to the ramp now.”
Cain laughed. “Practice this a little more. We’ll go tomorrow first thing.”
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Afternoon dawned bright and ready as the vigilantes woke up and got ready to meet at the skatepark.
Damian and Cain arrived together and found Brown already waiting.
“There you guys are!” Brown greeted. “You ready, squirt?”
Damian was apprehensive, enough to not even notice the nickname. He clutched his skateboard tight. “Let’s do this.”
His knees trembled slightly as he stood up at the ramp.
“You can do this, Dami!” Brown yelled from below.
“You did it last night, you can do it now!” Cain backed her words.
Damian took a deep breath then slowly let it out, calming himself. He could do this. For Drake. He could do this.
Damian took off. Brown and Cain cheered from the sidelines. He slid up and down, building momentum. He was about to do it during the fourth slide up, but got too nervous and just slid down. Continuing the movement, he slid up the other side then went back again.
He moved up them jumped and spun… and spun… and spun… went down and landed—
Then the skateboard slipped from underneath him on the wood and Damian crashed on his butt.
Brown and Cain immediately jumped to his side and helped him up. “You okay?” Cain asked.
“Yes,” Damian said. “I’m trying again.”
“That’s the spirit!” Brown said, excitement never leaving her voice.
Damian snatched his skateboard and tried again. He built up the momentum, lifted off, jumped, spun and…!
Fell again.
Jaw clenching hard, he held up a hand to keep Brown and Cain from coming to help him up again. He grabbed his board and tried again.
He almost got it this time, but wobbled and tipped over to the side this time.
“You’re so close, Dami,” Brown said, bouncing on her toes. “You’re almost there!”
Damian brushed himself off and readjusted his knee and elbow cap. He patted his helmet and picked his skateboard off the ground. “I will not fall forever,” he told himself as he climbed to the top of the ramp. “I will jump, and I will land.”
He glared down at the ramp fiercely. He could do this.
Damian took off.
This time, Damian let himself have some time to visualise his next moves. Like how Thomas could predict a few seconds ahead, Damian stared hard at the spot he was going to spin as he went up, then stared hard at the spot he was going to land when he slid down.
Gathering every ounce of the courage, stubbornness and determination passed down to him from his grandfather, mother and father, he flew.
He spun, once, twice, used the third spin to direct his feet straight to the ramp’s wood, and as soon as the wheels touched the wood, he pushed his shoulders forward and flexed the muscles on his upper body and caught hold of himself.
Damian landed on the ramp and did not fall.
Damian landed on the ramp and did. Not. Fall.
He came to a stop and turned to the girls.
His cheerleaders were silent, gaping at him with their eyes bulging and mouth ajar again. Except this time, it was for an entirely different reason.
“You did it,” Cassandra whispered.
“He did it,” Stephanie breathed out. “He actually did it. Cass, he… he did it. He— HE DID IT!”
Brown and Cain both burst into wild cheer, screaming their throats out and shaking each other vigorously and clapping.
Damian’s face split into a huge grin. He laughed, unable to help himself. “I did it!” he yelled. “I actually did it!”
“WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” both of them cheered, swarming towards him.
Cain hefted him up on her shoulders, bouncing him in excitement. Brown patted his back, jumping up and down herself.
Damian kept laughing, he couldn’t stop.
Drake’s skateboard, here I come.
----------------------------------------------
It was the day of the competition and Damian was full of nothing but bucketloads of nerves. His hands trembled at random times whenever he thought about it.
He was currently at Brown’s place where the three of them were having a breakfast of courage-building waffles while her mother was at work.
“I ate these right before my first night as Spoiler,” she was saying through a mouthful of chocolate syrup and waffle. “And that very night, I busted my first criminal with no issues. It’s like this infused my blood with courage.”
Cain snorted in amusement.
Damian could hardly stomach a strawberry amidst his nerves. Which was pointless because he knew he was going to win. It was a competition for kids between twelve and fourteen and he had practiced the 900 for it.
Still, something about the stakes was gnawing at his insides. If he didn’t get Drake the skateboard… he didn’t know how else to fix everything. He hadn’t planned anything else. He was pinning all his hopes on the skateboard making Drake happy enough to snap out of his foul and worrying mood.
“What’s going through your head, little brother?” Cass asked, noticing his silence.
Damian gulped. His words came out small when he asked, “What if… what if it doesn’t matter even if I win? What if Drake doesn’t like the skateboard because he lost interest in the hobby and I’ve been trying for nothing?”
“Nonsense,” Brown was quick to dismiss. “Tim definitely loves skateboarding still. I saw him zooming up and down the ramp in the Batcave like three weeks ago. Besides, once he hears that not only did you get him a signed skateboard from his favorite skateboarder, but also that you learned how to skate for him, he’ll definitely pick the hobby back with ten times more zeal.”
“What if he thinks that I just bought him the skateboard?” Damian asked.
“Ah,” Brown grinned. “That’s what I have this for.” She tapped two cameras. “I knew that Dick and everyone, including me, won’t forgive me if I didn’t record it so I swiped Bruce’s card to swipe these off the shop. Cass and I are going to be on opposite sides of the stands so we can capture every angle.”
Damian’s stomach squeezed in fondness. They had bought cameras just to record… him?
Another dark thought still hung over his head though. One that couldn’t seem to go away no matter what he tried. “What if…” he whispered. “What if Timothy never forgives me at all? What if he really does hate me?”
Cain and Brown’s eyes both softened at that. “Tim does not hate you, Damian,” Cain said gently. “He might have before, but only because you hated him first—”
“Yes, and I did horrible things to him. I tried to kill him several times.”
“But then after that you saved him multiple times too,” she countered. “And you bonded with him so many times, playing chess, bike-racing during patrol, playing pranks on the others, covering for each other from Bruce and Alfred. You’ve come a long way, Damian.”
Brown squeezed his shoulder. “And what you’re doing now is really one of the cherries on the cake. Even just an attempt will mean a lot to him.”
Damian puffed his chest. “This will not be a mere attempt. I will win.”
The two girls laughed. “Not doubting it for even a second,” Brown agreed.
They went to Wayne Manor and grabbed the private Wayne jet since the competition was in Metropolis. Cain talked to the pilot while Brown tried to distract Damian with funny TikTok videos. By the time they finished with the parking and grabbed a taxi to arrive at the venue, Damian felt almost nauseous. All the “what ifs” swarmed to his head like locusts, despite Cain and Brown’s reassurances.
“Name?” the bored man at the register in front of the entrance to the arena asked.
“Damian Horace,” Damian answered, feeling a little relieved when his voice didn’t shake.
He had entered a fake name because entering ‘Wayne’ would bring a lot of trouble in the form of nepotism accusations and snoopy media coverage. The cake incident was enough.
“Here’s your wristband,” the man waved a lazy hand at the red wristband strips on the table.
Brown grabbed one for him and they stepped through the entrance.
“Oooh,” Brown gasped, looking around at the arena. “Fancy.”
It was. Unlike Gotham’s termite-infested, broken-down, hazardous skate parks, Metropolis’s was pristine, well-maintained and clean. Not that it was necessarily a bad thing. It just meant that Damian had the upper hand in experience.
An announcement went through the speakers, “All candidates, we will begin in fifteen minutes. Please take your skateboards and report to the ramp where you will receive further instructions.”
“Okay, here.” Brown peeled off the plastic and looped the wristband around his hand, sticking it securely. “All the best! You’re gonna crush it.”
Cain ruffled his hair. “Take deep breaths. You will be okay.”
Damian nodded resolutely. Brown finished sticking the end bit and stepped back. “I will meet you at the entrance,” he told them.
Brown snorted. “You’re talking like we won’t be swarming towards you the second they announce the winners. We’ll see you right at the ramp, squirt.”
“Please don’t.”
“Not a chance,” Cain smirked.
Damian sighed, too nervous to protest and trudged to the ramp where thirty or so participants stood. He did a quick head count and confirmed a total of twenty-seven participants present. That was more than he expected.
“Alrighty!” A woman with an Australian accent wearing an orange shirt with cargo pants called out to the competitors. “In terms of rules, there will be no pushing or bullying or any of that behaviour. We are going to support each other as a skateboarding community. There will be no foul language or rude and inappropriate gestures because we’re tired of them. There will be no whining or demanding for a retrial if you don’t win, that’s not how it works.” She sighed, rubbing her temple. “Now, if you look at your wristband, you will see a number. That is the order you are going in.”
Damian glanced at his wrist. He was number 24. He didn’t know if it was bad or good.
“Any questions?”
One kid raised his hand. “What is the maximum amount of points deducted?”
“That, sir, will be a fail on sight.”
Dread bubbled in Damian’s stomach. It wasn’t going to be him. Obviously. He hoped.
“But it’s only for someone who fails the basic tricks required to at least pass the first round. In the second and final round where you’ll be freestyling, your lowest score can only get up to a three—that’s one point each from all the judges.” She pointed at the stands and Damian took a double take. He hadn’t even noticed the judges sitting there.
He could see them now. One was a buff guy with tattoos, the other was one with short-cropped hair and a ridiculously red nose. And lastly, it was Widdad herself. Watching them all with a kind and excited smile, her black hijab billowing slightly with a gust of wind.
“Alrighty, any more questions? No? Let’s do this folks!” She clapped her hands together then pointed in the opposite direction. “Please line up over on that side where you can see a table full of snacks and drinks. Help yourself, quench those nerves, let’s go!”
The speakers boomed again with another announcement, “Audience members, please take your seats. We will begin in five minutes.”
The whole area was filled with deafening chatter as the stands filled with people. Damian’s legs felt like water as he walked with the other kids to the tables on the grass. He tried looking for Cain and Brown, but the crowd was too thick.
Damian grabbed a slice of orange, just to have something to do with his hands. The announcer on the speakers called for the first contestant to come forward.
A boy, looking around fourteen and wearing bright purple helmet and joint guards, stepped into the arena smiling nervously at the judges. He put his skateboard down, secured his helmet, then took off.
Overall, Damian would rate the entire show a 4 out of 10. The kid was okay and got through, but then again this was just the basics round.
The second kid stepped up and he made it as well. The third kid did not. The basics round only went on for 4-5 minutes each, and contestants were stopped at the five minute mark. When it was Damian’s turn, he got a firm hold of himself and stuck his nose in the air before stepping up.
The crowd politely clapped, except for two certain people on either side of him. Damian spotted Brown and Cain by their especially loud cheers, they were holding cameras pointed at him. Damian gave them a small smile before dropping his skateboard to the ground and taking off.
He performed all the basics immaculately. Of course he did, he was Damian Wayne. He got through to the next round.
Two out of the last three kids made it. Then the announcer called for a fifteen-minute break.
Damian met with Brown and Cain near the entrance again. “You were great!” Cain was saying. “Didn’t even falter once.”
“Of course I didn’t. Why would I want to do that?”
The two laughed. Brown handed him a bottle of his favorite orange gatorade.
“You know…” she said, “you don’t even have to do the 900. Your routine’s better than the others as it is.”
Damian scoffed. “I’m not doing it for the judges. I’m doing it for Timothy. You’re recording it, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “Fair enough! Tim’s gonna have his pants blown off when he sees it.”
The break ended and everyone went back to their places.
“Final round, everyone! Only 15 contestants left and 3 winning places to fill! All the best!”
“There’s no doubt that I’m gonna win,” one kid was bragging to their group. “I’ve been skateboarding since I could walk. Dad said that I can be an Olympic skateboarder in no time.”
“Really?” another kid asked with wide eyes.
“Yep.” He crossed his arms smugly. “He reckons I’m better than Tony Hawk and Jordan Richter.”
Damian rolled his eyes, but valiantly held off from putting the kid in his place. It would look better if he kept his routine a secret until the end.
Honestly, the things he was doing for Drake. The idiot better be grateful.
He was scheduled to go third-last, with quite a few contestants before him. He took the time to observe everyone else’s routines and visualize his own in their place.
Finally, the time came for him to show off his skills.
“Number 24, Damian Horace!” the announcer called.
Damian took a deep breath, then let it out. He walked with his skateboard, ignoring the pit of dread in his stomach.
Damian dropped his skateboard to the ground, and closed his eyes.
He could do this. He was going to do this, and he wasn’t going to fall. He had fallen enough times already. Today was not going to be it.
He opened his eyes, and he was ready.
Damian took off and immediately jumped on the curb with a frontside boardslide. He landed on the ground without a wobble and immediately jumped to the next curb with a backside tailslide. He landed and jumped into a 180 ollie.
Damian did trick after trick, making the audience “ooh” and “aah” in awe. The announcer was going crazy over his tricks, and he realized that Brown was right. He didn’t have to do the 900. Glancing at the judges faces, he could see that he was already going to win.
Damian shot a quick look over to where he knew Cain was sitting. She had a big, proud grin on her face as she filmed. It wasn’t hard to picture Drake with the same expression in her place. He would make Drake proud nonetheless.
…Still. He was Damian Wayne, and he had fallen so many times just for this trick. Could he really call himself infallible if all the falls were for nothing?
Gritting his teeth, Damian swerved over to the ramp.
The crowd’s cheers increased in volume. Damian blocked it out in favor of concentrating on his movements. He couldn’t afford any distractions right now.
Damian went up and down the ramp, flashing some of the simpler tricks to build up tension for his final act. He had just under a minute to wrap it up, as shown on the large timer beside the judges’ stand.
Damian went up, then down. He rolled to the other side, gathering speed and momentum and preparing his muscles to spin. The skateboard’s wheels rolled off the ramp…
It was like everything was in slow-motion again. Damian had a choice. He could do a flyout and end it here.
…Or he could risk it all and try the 900.
Damian chose the impossible.
He tucked and spun, rotating in the air with his skateboard once… twice… thrice… pushed down to land and—
Rolled down the slope with barely a falter.
He came to a stop just as the timer buzzed. He looked around the dead-silent arena. Even the announcer was quiet.
He caught Brown’s eye amidst the crowd. She was staring at him, mouth agape and with so much pride and awe. Then, she screamed.
“THAT’S MY LITTLE BROTHER!!!”
And the crowd went wild.
Whistles, cheers, and calls deafened everyone present as everyone collectively stood up to applaud. The judges shot up too, all of them holding signs that said ‘10’.
Damian grinned.
--------------------------------------
“That was amazing,” Widdad exclaimed as she handed him the signed skateboard. “Seriously, even I struggle to pull that move, how on earth did you do it?!”
Damian shrugged, accepting the skateboard as he stood on top of the winners’ steps. The kids who had come second and third were shooting astounded looks at him. Brown and Cain were right in front, still cheering as they filmed him standing on the ‘number 1’ pedestal, holding a trophy on one hand and the skateboard on the other.
Damian stared into the cameras, smiling. I hope you like it, Drake, he thought to himself, Thanks for being my brother.
After the ceremony, Damian, Brown and Cain went to the nearest ice-cream place. They bought an entire tub filled with as many flavors as they could get.
“We won’t be able to finish this,” Cain said, swiping some of the mango. “It’s going to melt.”
“We have a mini-freezer in the bat-plane,” Brown said through a mouthful of royal double chocolate.
“It’s going to melt before then,” Damian pointed out before licking a spoonful of pistachio.
“Oh boo hoo. Guess we’ll just have to deal with multi flavored ice-cream soup.”
“We’re not sharing this with the others, by the way,” Cain said. “Right?”
“Of course! It’s our celebratory ice-cream. None of them showed up and pushed our little hero into a cake shop window and taught him skateboarding.”
“You mean watched me do skateboarding. You didn’t teach me anything.”
Brown gasped exaggeratedly. “How dare you, you little squirt? After all those hours of sacrifice? Never have I seen such insolence.” She slumped over Damian dramatically, arm over her forehead.
“Get your fat ass off me, fat-girl!”
They took the taxi back to the plane. A new kind of nervousness filled Damian now. He was eager to give Drake his gift, but no matter how much Brown told him, he still couldn’t make himself sure that Drake would like it. What if he somehow messed everything up?
When they arrived at Wayne Manor, Brown set out to find Drake’s whereabouts. Cain sat on his bed as he took a shower, changed out of his skateboarding gear and into normal clothes. He came out, fresh and clean to see that Cain had placed his trophy on top of his bookshelf.
He stepped forward, admiring its bronze coating and the mini skateboarding figure on top.
“You won it,” Cain said, “and you should be proud to display it.”
Damian didn’t answer. He did feel a strange sort of pride for it. It was just a piece of shaped metal, used for nothing but to add to a person’s ego.
But to Damian… he felt proud because it didn’t just represent his win. It represented all the hours of practice, hard work and falling down. It showed that he had gotten up despite the failures, and he had won because of that.
The door slammed open just then and Pennyworth and Brown stood in the doorway. Brown was beaming as Pennyworth looked stricken and surprised.
“Master Damian!” He almost ran forward, taking his shoulders in his hands. “Is it true? Is what Miss Stephanie said true? Did you really enter a competition and win?”
Damian smiled, feeling incredibly smug at the butler’s disbelieving tone. “Well, Pennyworth,” he said. “You can see for yourself.” He jerked his head towards the trophy on his shelf.
Pennyworth turned and his jaw dropped to the floor. “My,” he whispered, fingers slowly reaching out. “I— may I touch it?” he asked.
Damian nodded.
His wrinkled fingers stroked the metal lightly. To everyone’s surprise, tears filled the old man’s eyes. “Beautiful,” he said, turning back to him. “Master Damian, words cannot express just how proud I am of you.”
Damian flushed, not expecting the words.
“Miss Stephanie said that you won a skateboard as well?”
Cain held up the board which had been kept on his bed. “It’s signed by Widdad. Tim’s favorite skateboarder.”
“Damian felt bad about snapping at Tim and wanted to lift his mood since he’s been so distant lately, so he learned skateboarding just so he could win this. We recorded the whole thing!” Brown pointed to the cameras on his desk.
Pennyworth’s face split into a smile. “Well, I’d say that a family movie night is due soon then.”
“Hell yeah!” Brown punched a fist in the air. “I can’t wait to see everyone’s faces. Bruce is gonna freak.”
“So will Jason, Duke and Dick,” Cain laughed.
Damian only cared about one person’s reaction right now. “Pennyworth? Do you… know where Drake is?”
“Oh, yes. He dropped by only ten minutes ago. He said that he’s collecting some files in the Batcave.” He checked his watch. “You better hurry. I don’t believe that he’s going to stay for long.”
What?
Damian grabbed the skateboard from Cain’s hands, and his own skateboard from under the bed, and shot out the door. He rolled down the hallway, then slid down the rails of the stairs, landing on the tiles perfectly. He entered the study and hurriedly spun the clock’s hands. He didn’t even wait for it to open completely before he was zooming down the stairs.
Just before he landed, he heard a bike revving. Was he leaving already?
“Drake!” he screamed.
He zipped forward on the cave’s stone floor, past the computer, past the glass cases, past the dinosaur.
“Drake!” He grabbed a nearby grappling hook.
He could see Drake on his bike, about to leave. Damian shot the grapple gun and it clutched the back of his bike.
He tied the line on the rails in front of the vehicle loading zone, keeping Drake’s bike from moving.
It worked, because the bike jerked backward and Drake fell to the floor.
“What the hell, Damian?” Drake took off his helmet and threw it to the side, expression furious. “What the hell was that for?”
Damian halted his skateboard to a stop in front of him and held up the won skateboard. “Here,” he said, breathless with the exertion. “I got it for you.”
Drake paused, frown deepening. “What?”
Damian turned the skateboard, showing the signature bright and clear at the back. “It’s a skateboard,” he explained. “Signed by Widdad, your favorite skateboarder. I learned how to skate and entered a competition and won it. For you.”
He held it up higher. Suddenly shy, he directed his gaze to the ground.
“I said something I didn’t mean. You do belong here. With us. With me. And I have changed. The idea of having “brothers” used to disgust me at first but now… after everything that’s happened, I like having brothers now. I like being one.”
Damian squirmed, uncomfortable with the show of vulnerability but determined to get it out. “I’m sorry for what I said, Timothy. I… I hope this makes up for it.” Even as he spoke, it sounded ridiculous.
How could a piece of wood on wheels with a signature make up for everything? All the murder attempts, the poisonous words aimed to hurt? Damian was an idiot. A huge, weak, failure of a—
Hands grabbed him and pulled him forward. Damian gasped as he fell on someone’s chest.
It took a moment before he registered the arms around him, holding him in a hug.
Damian looked up, Timothy was hugging him, a smile on his face and tears on his cheeks.
“What the hell, Damian?” he whispered, sniffing loudly. “This isn’t a joke, is it?”
Damian scoffed. “Of course not. I don’t joke.”
Timothy laughed, squeezing him tighter.
Damian had to ask, just in case, “Does this mean that you… forgive me?”
Timothy laughed again. “Fuck. Yes, Damian. Yes. I said some pretty shitty stuff too, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean those either, I swear. I’m just—”
He blew out a breath and let him go, wiping his tears.
“I’m… not feeling good,” he admitted. “I— Something happened. While on a mission with the Titans. It’s hard to talk about it. And I’m… I’m struggling with— with depression stuff because of that.” Drake rubbed his arm guiltily. “It’s… it’s why I’ve sort of been pushing people away, I guess.”
Damian blinked. “Oh.” So that was what was happening.
“I know it’s not good,” Drake said. “I just… I don’t know what to do.”
“Did you go talk about this with Dinah?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t been going lately.”
Damian rolled his eyes. “You’re an idiot, Drake. That, at least, is true.”
Drake laughed. “Fine. I deserve that one.” He looked at the skateboard Damian was still holding.
Damian noticed and held it up again, offering it to him.
“This really signed by Widdad?” he asked, awe filling his voice.
Damian nodded proudly. “I won it because I did the 900.”
Drake’s eyes popped. “You did a what?”
Damian smirked, turning around and skating away.
“Wait, Damian! Wait! Come back, did you say the 900? Are you for real? Damian!”
------------------------------------------
Damian didn’t bother entering another skateboarding competition. It wasn’t really his knack or area of interest. But the whole experience did give him another idea.
So a month later, he was standing in front of his painted easel, proudly holding a blue pin as his family cheered from the sidelines.
“Well done, young man,” the art judge said, shaking his hand as they smiled for the camera. “You have quite the talent.”
“I know,” Damian replied.
The judge raised an eyebrow at the lack of a thank you, but didn’t say anything. He moved on to the second prize winner.
The entire family was there for him that day, not just Brown and Cain. They had all lost their minds when Pennyworth played the tape from the footage Cain and Brown had filmed of him skateboarding. They all asked for a turn holding his trophy and the signed skateboard too.
Drake was doing much better now, Damian’s gift giving him the push to talk to Richard and Dinah. He was also very proud of his gifted skateboard, and rode it everywhere he went for a week. Even if the distance was as short as from his room to the kitchen. Pennyworth held off from banning riding any skateboards until the end of the week, waving off the three broken vases with the excuse of being too proud of Damian to complain. Drake didn’t allow anyone to touch the skateboard, Damian had given all ownership to him as a gift after all. When Todd almost got his grubby hands on it, he didn’t hesitate to throw a batarang at him, only just missing his hand.
Damian and Drake both spent hours skateboarding and doing tricks. Father built more skateboarding ramps and curbs in the Batcave just for the two of them. Damian taught Drake how to do the 900, though he couldn’t completely get the grasp of it for the first couple weeks.
It was Damian’s biggest flex—not only had he learned how to skateboard in two weeks, he learned how to do one of the hardest tricks in less. To say Drake was jealous was an understatement. But more than that, Drake said that he was proud of Damian. Proud to have a little brother like him.
------------------------------------------------
Damian’s mother once told him he was infallible.
But Drake told him he was stronger when he let himself fall, because picking himself up was a greater show of strength than never falling in the first place.
And… looking at Drake now, as he glided gleefully and expertly around the skatepark with his new skateboard, doing tricks and flips with such expert practice that hid a thousand falls, Damian could believe it.
After all, Timothy was the strongest person he knew.